For those perhaps interested, I filmed my daily “opening” process: feed the dogs, open the barn, feed the ducks, chickens and donkeys. As mentioned in the video, sometimes it feels like I’m in the Groundhog Day movie with Bill Murray.
Demonstrated the use of pallet forks on the front end of the tractor, used to first “stir” (mix) the compost pile, then use a 275 gallon “IBC tote” (THAT’s what the damn things are called …) to water the compost. Chickens everywhere … as usual.
Had a bit of a “snake surprise” in the barn. There are SO many mice running around the barn these days, I’m surprised and a bit disappointed the snake wasn’t twice as big (fat).
Sadly … I had to put a coyote down yesterday because it was attacking my bird flock, and going after my boy (duck) DJ. Historically, I’ve tried NOT to shoot coyotes, and have even not pulled the trigger with the crosshairs center-of-mass on a trespassing coyote. But, in this case, the coyote was essentially an “active shooter” going after my birds. THAT … I can not allow, not right in front of me anyways.
There is a moral to the story here: country living involves both the taking of life, and the making of life. That’s just the way it is. Putting predators down isn’t fun and games, it’s just part of the dynamics of raising livestock in an area (over-) populated with predators. I love dogs, and coyotes are essentially just wild dogs, so it is a joyless thing to have to take one’s life. Sad actually. BUT … it would have been even SADDER if this bitch would have gotten a hold of DJ the duck, or even one of my hens. If the coyote was going after one of my roosters, I might have turned the other cheek, because I could stand to lose a roo or two for having a few more than needed. But, alas, that’s not the way it played out.
However, as pointed out in the video, while I had to take one life, I also intervened in another way to create about 5 to 8 new lives by putting the duck eggs in the incubator. If I didn’t … they would have just been coyote snacks. Life. Give and take. Country living. Plain. Simple. 😉
Total of 4 new baby ducklings hatched by end of day.
I spent most of the day out hand tossing hay over the 1.8 acre ‘park’ pasture to protect the newly seeded winter cover crop (red clover, crimson clover, Austrian winter peas) from Hurricane Michael, which is due to arrive tomorrow or Friday.
It isn’t hard work (per se), but tedious. That said, by the end of the day I was completely bushed, ready to jump into the massage chair and/or jacuzzi. Did neither … fell asleep on the couch with the pup laying on my chest. Yeah, that kind of day.
As I described in the opening segment … I was on my first cup of coffee, doing my morning situational awareness review (SAR) (news, weather, etc.) when it dawned on me that I was hearing something … a bird of some sort … that struck me as … different. I thought, hmmm, sounds like a baby chicken. DOAH! I forgot about the duck eggs in the incubator in the window sill behind me!
Sure enough … first baby duckling had hatched! As you may recall, I found a clutch of duck eggs in a next next to my duck pond, and couldn’t find the mother duck. Thinking perhaps a coyote got her, I moved all 20 of the eggs into an incubator. I’ve incubated over a 100 chicken eggs, but never any duck eggs (until NOW!). I did some research, and estimated their hatch date to be the 10th of October. Obviously, I was only 2 days off. We ended up with three newborn ducklings by the end of the day, and there is still about 7 eggs in the incubator, with one showing signs of hatching now.
Also found that one of my mamma rabbits dropped a litter of 10 to 12 new rabbit kits into a nest box over night.
Then, I found a free-ranging rabbit of mine with a whole nest of maggot larvae in an open wound in her neck. GROSS!
Spent some quality time with the pupperino (Deuce). He and Hooey helped me unfurl a big ol’ hay roll in the freshly seeded ‘park’ next door, which we’ll need to distribute over 1.8 acres today (Tuesday).
Long day … but a good day. Country living at it’s best.
First few ‘bands’ of Hurricane Florence passed through. Not much rain, just fast moving, dark clouds and moderate, variable and gusting winds.
Watch the black duck segment closely. Watch how she keeps tilting her head up to watch the high speed clouds passing overhead. Interesting.
Used the Mavic Pro drone to monitor storm conditions from about 300 to 400 feet AGL (above ground level). Always impressed with not just the 4K video shot by the drone, but almost more so its onboard flight management computer. That damn thing will hold a perfect GPS-based position fix (aka ‘hover’), even in high, gusty winds. Truly amazing piece of consumer technology.
Had to arm wrestle (wing wrestle?) the young chickens into their coop tonight. The bone-heads wanted to stay out in the approaching storm. Young and dumb … just like human kids. 😉
Found mamma hen’s (not the best of names, but she answers to it!) pirate nest, which made my day. She’s the hen that hatched about 14 chicks in a compost pile earlier in the Spring. She’s a natural!
Got 550 gallons (2000 liters) of fresh drinking water stored in the two IBC totes.
After Hooey and I got all the animals bedded down for the night, we sat on the patio with a bottle of wine and watched the storm clouds race by … without dropping much rain.
Decided to move the badonkadonks back into the barn pasture to provide them with more shelter during the upcoming hurricane. Had to clean up the barn pasture, fix a section of fence that I crushed with a felled tree earlier in the summer, and move the winter hay bales into a different pasture.
After all that work making room for a 18-wheeler to deliver a shipment, the truck driver chickened out, so I had to meet him down on the paved road and tractor the pallet myself. Same driver that delivered a shipment about 9 months ago … and he pussed out then too. I should have known when he called me from an I-40 offramp about 10 miles away and said … “I need you to give me directions to your place.” I replied, “don’t you have a GPS?” No. “Do you have a map book?” No. “Think maybe you should have researched your route before you left the warehouse?” Lemme call my dispatcher, maybe he has a GPS.
Then I get a second call from him … “I’m looking at a dirt road.” Me: “Yup, I told your dispatcher I live on a rural farm, dirt roads, long gravel driveway, tight turn or two.” Him: uuuummmmm…
Whatever. No harm, no foul. Got the shipment (new Caravaggi stump grinder for the BCS 853 walk-behind tractor). Good sized thunderstorm moved in late in the PM. Got a few good shots with the Mavic Pro drone. Heavy late PM rain showers, but not Florence. Not yet. 😉
After getting all the animals fed, watered, etc., I hitched up the new County Line Middle Buster plow and went out to test it in what we call the big pasture. The test went so well, I just kept on plowing … all day … and got the whole pasture done.
\I got the new PTO-driven, 3-point hitch mounted tiller assembled, but stumbled on the last step, cutting the PTO drive shaft down to the right length. The instructions SUCK. Later in the evening, I found an awesome instructional video from the fine folks at Everything Attachments (NC), so now (Monday, Labor Day) I know what to do.
Spent some ‘quality time’ with my woodlot thinning tools today (e.g. hookaroon, chainsaw, choker, skid tongs, boom pole hoist) working to bring down and haul away a bunch of trees, so I took the opportunity to share some of those experiences via GoPro to … perhaps … give others some ideas re: wood lot thinning.
Ended up getting some sort of nasty allergic response to something I was exposed to, and since I was more or less offline all last week with a head to toe ‘contact dermatitis’ outbreak, I called it a day early and spent the rest of the afternoon in a Benadryl haze, watching Season 1 X-File episodes on Hulu.
I left the badonkadonks in the garden pasture overnight, so let’s see what sort of damage they did when the sun comes back up.
After getting all the animals up, out and fed this morning, Hooey and I spent most of the day inside … CLEANING. Fun. Fun.
Caught another black snake and took the opportunity to read him the riot act about eating baby bunnies … so hopefully he’ll spread the word through the slithering community.
Checked on the worm farm and found it didn’t have any worms left in it, but DID have a bazillion grubs of some unknown species. So I dumped the whole damn thing in the garden extension and let the chickens munch on the grubs.
Hooey puked up a big wad of fresh donkey road apples (poop), so she went without dinner. Don’t let her tell you I don’t feed her fat ass enough food. She eats well in terms of both volume and quality. She just likes eating donkey donuts for some (stupid) reason. When I tease her about it … she points out that I eat hummus. Really? Hummus vs. Donkey Doo? PLEASE … 😉
Check out Soleil (bigger badonkadonk). Doesn’t she look good. I started brushing her coat out a few times a week, and she looks like a show pony now. Used to look like a boxcar hobo.
